A Cinephile's Journey

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

LOVE COMES: MR. HARDY IS AT LAST CONSCIOUS OF THE GRAND
PASSION -- MR. LAUREL ISN'T EVEN CONSCIOUS OF THE GRAND CANYON.

We return to early days, the year 1931 to be specific, for
another look at a film from comedy legends Laurel & Hardy. As you may (or
may not remember), the only time we’ve looked at a film from this pairing
before, Be Big!, turned out to be something of a damp squib… in my opinion.
Timing was off, ideas were short, and laughs were, as a result, thin on the
ground. Well, today’s venture sees us looking over a film the pair produced in
the same period/year, still working under contract with Hal Roach. Fortunately,
there seems to be a bit more potential in the set-up for this one. This is Beau
Hunks (also known as Beau Chumps).

Ollie (Oliver Hardy) is in love, smitten, all aflutter with
feelings of amore. He informs his friend Stanley (Stan Laurel) of his plans to
be married to his sweetheart, Jeanie Weenie. However, within minutes of this
announcement, he receives a letter informing him that the relationship is over.
Heartbroken and disillusioned, Ollie decides to join the French Foreign Legion to
forget his heartbreak, and he’s bringing Stanley with him. Once there, though,
in the harsh arid heat of the desert, the pair very quickly find themselves in
over their heads.

There should be an immediate moment of recognition with this
film for anyone who is familiar with Laurel & Hardy, even if they’ve never
seen any of their films. There are effectively three (arguably four) images of
the comedic duo that have become somewhat iconic for them. One is them in their
classic garb of suits and bowler hats; one is them dressed in police uniforms;
and the third is Ollie & Stan dressed as a pair of soldiers in the Foreign
Legion (in case you’re wondering, the fourth would be them as hobos). You’d
certainly think that the film that presented the world with this image would be
worth the watch, and not just some kind of excuse to put them in a funny
costume. Well, it was, but that can work out quite well sometimes.

And fortunately enough, it worked. Beau Hunks is a solid outing from the pair, with a good pace, good gags and a pretty good story
that runs through the whole to keep things moving. Sure, perhaps some may
consider it a bit of a leap that a guy would go off to an inhospitable foreign
land to serve out the rest of his days as a soldier for an army he can’t leave
all because he was so heartbroken… but then it’s not really too much of a leap
given the context. Hollywood movies relied on the idea of the French Foreign
Legion being populated by men of desperation, the troubled ones, the wronged
ones, and they made a great use of it. This is kind of a spill-over from literature, predominantly the novel Beau Geste, where
this film gets its title. Besides, even if you do find it somewhat difficult,
it’s a Laurel & Hardy comedy from the early 1930s, which puts it not too
far above a Bugs Bunny cartoon. We can give them some leeway for shenanigans.

And the set-up is handled very well, and gives them some
pretty good gags. Even moments separate from the plotting are a fine trove of
visual gags, callbacks and physical gaffs, which come off much better here than
they did in Be Big! because they don’t feel like they’ve been stretched out
past breaking point. The opening few minutes of this film has a much better hit
ratio. Aside from showing off Ollie’s actually rather sweet singing voice as he
serenades (from afar) his loved one, Jeanie, Stan accidentally cuts a square of
fabric out of the seat of armchair, and tries to cover it up. After Ollie
finishes his song and confesses his intentions to marry, Stan says he doesn’t
believe him, asking who would marry Ollie. His answer, “A woman, of course.
Have you ever heard of someone marrying a man?” Stan says he has. A little
surprised, Ollie asks who. Without missing a beat, Stan replies, “My
sister.” Classic.

Once the pair arrive at the fort of the Foreign Legion,
things start to get under way. Stan flubs the roll call, they both get on the
wrong side of the commanding officer (who they constantly refer to as a
different rank every time they address him), and Ollie discovers a truth about
his beloved Jeanie Weenie. From the beginning, Ollie has clutched a picture of
his true love close to his heart, and it’s only in this picture that we ever
see her… it’s an autographed picture of Jean Harlow. When they arrive at the
barracks, whilst Ollie looks forlornly at her image, Stan looks around the
other new recruits, and every one of them is also tearfully clutching an
autographed picture of Jean Harlow. So, it turns out that Ollie has perhaps had
nothing more than an unrequited crush on a beautiful movie star, literally just
like everyone else. That he received a letter from her breaking off their
relationship seems to be neither here nor there, since, it would seem, so did
every other guy. This theme then becomes one of the better running gags of the
film.

The direction of Beau Hunks actually feels stronger, more
visually coherent thanks to director James W. Horne (on viewing this, we would have to surmise that Parrott was the one
responsible for the directorial flatness on Be Big!). The first time we find ourselves introduced to the communal
sleeping quarters of the new recruits, we see it through an extended rifle
rack, presenting an apparent image of these men being behind bars…
made of guns. That’s a pretty strong and striking image of the world our pair
now find themselves in, where these men are now effectively trapped in a life
of military servitude from which there is no escape. When you think about it,
that’s kind of a harsh image to put in a Laurel & Hardy comedy. Later, as
the troop are marching in the desert, on their way to their first real
assignment, we get what is basically handheld camerawork, with the camera
bobbing and shaking in front of out intrepid duo, marching along with them and
heightening the difficulty of their effort. And this was in 1931, before the
camera advances that came from World War II news reporting made such manoeuvres
less cumbersome. Visually, Beau Hunks is a kind of a treat.

There may be some issue with Beau Hunks as concerns the
depiction of Arabs in the film, being that they are the villains of the piece,
all barefoot and Allah-praising. That said, I’m not entirely sure how much of a
problem it really is. They aren’t actually as hideously stereotyped as they
could have been, certainly when considering the time period of the film. Nor
are they overly evil, or regarded as any kind of godless heathens or savages.
They are painted pretty broadly as simple bad guys for our heroes to fight. Bad guys that would, given
the temporal and geographical setting, would make sense to use. It’s probably
not good that they would have been just straight up used as the bad guys, nor
is it necessarily the best defence to say that they aren’t as badly portrayed
as they could have been, but they aren’t really demonised, either. It’s perhaps
just a point of note.

Again, speaking from a personal perspective, there are some
moments where I think a couple of jokes go on a bit long, the one that springs
instantly to mind is when Stan gets his rifle caught in Ollie’s belt and can’t
get it loose. However, that’s kind of just getting picky at this point. Plus,
that’s just my own personal taste.

Beau Hunks is a good and worthy use of the comedic talents
of Laurel & Hardy, showcasing some of their best skills in a variety of
comedy disciplines, not to mention being a fine show for the acting and singing
talents of Oliver Hardy. On top of that, it offers some surprisingly
deft use of camerawork and visual metaphor that you wouldn’t necessarily equate
with this kind of picture, particularly for its time, thanks to Horne. Beau Hunks may in fact be
the longest Laurel & Hardy film, but it’s certainly up there with their
best.

Thursday, 27 June 2013

There exists in most people, not everyone, but most people
an urge, a fundamental need to travel beyond their own borders. Specific
reasons for this need can vary from person to person, ranging from the
relatively low end (“I wanna try the beer of every country in that continent”) to
the more high minded (“I want to experience other cultures firsthand”) to the
boundary pushing (“I want to be more connected with how I live every day of my
life”). However, perhaps the most common thing is a deep-seated quest for
freedom, to shake off the constraints of the world in which you’ve grown up and
just go, hoping to find adventure, peace, excitement, new experiences,
paradise. And what if you were to actually find that paradise? A literal
location of beauty and tranquility free from the hassle of the “real world”.
And if you found it, what would you do to keep it? To protect it from the
others looking for it, too?

Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young American, travels to
Thailand to experience a world that is unlike his own back home. Whilst there,
he meets the possibly psychotic Daffy (Robert Carlyle), who possesses a map he
claims leads to an isolated beach, a tropical paradise. Later, when Richard finds the
body of Daffy, a victim of suicide, he takes the map and, inviting along a
French couple he has me, sets off to find this new bliss on a secluded island.

Around the mid-90s, specifically 1994, the boys of Figment
(director Danny Boyle, writer John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald) landed
on the British film scene with a hell of a first film, Shallow Grave. Pretty
much still standing up there amongst the best feature debuts ever, they then
managed to outdo themselves two years later when they released Trainspotting,
which gave them an instant passport to worldwide recognition. Perhaps
inevitably, their next year’s follow-up, A Life Less Ordinary, saw them stumble
a bit. Now, I will eventually get to all three of those films along this
journey, but the effect of that third title was something of a temporary
retreat for the Figment team. Part of what made A Life Less Ordinary such a
flop was the erratic sense of tone and loose focus of the film, trying to make
a romance, a crime story, an ethereal road movie, an anarchic comedy… it was kind of all
over the place, at least as was seen at the time. Certainly ambitious, but
there was no real escaping the fact it was a major departure from the
laser-like focus of something like Shallow Grave. Their first flop, it sent the
boys back under for three years, during which time they released only one short
film in 1999 called Alien Love Triangle, starring Kenneth Branagh, Heather
Graham, Courteney Cox and Alice Connor.

However, the following year, they made their return to the
feature market, with an adaptation of Alex Garland’s 1996 novel The Beach, in
which a disconnected young Brit travels to Thailand seeking adventure and ends
up discovering a secret paradise beach on a remote island.

Some of the events that led up to the making of the film are
actually quite interesting, given that they are somewhat indicative of some of
the problems with the film, of which it undoubtedly has a few. One of the first
regarded the casting of the lead. Director Boyle wanted to cast his regular
star Ewan McGregor as the lead, however this was not to be. Some stories vary
as to when it actually happened, but the primary thrust is that the decision
was made over Boyle’s head. McGregor hadn’t quite fully capitalised on the rise
to stardom in a major way just yet, and it certainly didn’t help that the last
time McGregor and Boyle paired up was a flop. As such, the studio wanted
someone much more bankable and “hot” for the lead, and they chose Leonardo
DiCaprio, who was still riding the wave of popularity from his heartthrob
status and the wild success of 1997’s Titanic. Though Boyle wound up holding
DiCaprio in high regard, it was the first of the concessions that had to be
made to deliver the product 20th Century Fox wanted, rather than a
more accurate depiction of the novel.

By the director’s own admission, The Beach would seem to be
kind of an odd choice of project for Danny Boyle. Previously, his films were
set in urban environments, locating themselves very much within contemporary
modern society. In The Beach, the point is about actively distancing oneself
from it, getting away from usual trappings of the urban construct and striking
out for parts unknown. As the man said himself, “I liked the actors, we had a
great time, but I didn’t like the characters. I’m an urban person. I love
cities and I made that film about a load of hippies in the countryside, nothing
in common with them at all. You’re there making the film and you think, ‘I
can’t relate to these people at all. What are they doing here? I am so bored.’”
So, given this point, you would have to ask why exactly he picked this project
to return with. Well, looking beyond the “hippies in the countryside” comment,
these characters do share a common link to his previous ones: a selfish pursuit
of pleasure.

Now, this definition does shift slightly as you look to his
previous work. In Shallow Grave, three friends compromise their own morals, and
friendship, when presented with a chance for substantial financial gain. In
Trainspotting, every character is engaged in a pursuit of their own thrills, be
it through drugs, sex or violence. Even in A Life Less Ordinary, Robert and
Celine engage in an extended crime spree through desperation and greed… yes,
okay, and love. The point is that the characters Boyle has a tendency to focus
on aren’t necessarily the most sympathetic or likable, though there is still
the argument of how he expects to make an audience relate to these characters
when he cannot do so himself. Nevertheless, I believe I can see something of an
attraction for Boyle to working on this project, aside from the chance to visit
a nice locale.

Richard’s whole quest for paradise is born of the same
pleasure-seeking temperament as those in Boyle’s previous films. However, in
The Beach, it goes beyond just that of a personal quest. The film itself is a
more ambitious attempt to pursue and embrace a higher sense of paradise, one
that can be reached, embraced and enjoyed by all… provided they are worthy.
This idea of a religious conceit to the film is one that is hinted at here and
there, though this could perhaps have been built on better were it not for an
apparent need to please the studio, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Paradise as
a term has its roots in a religious context, referring to a place of peace and
contentment, which rests as a contrary ideal to the abject misery of human
existence and, more so, to the torment of a Christian Hell. Despite being
located within an Eastern territory, it’s Christianity that is the reference
point, since those that come to stay on the titular beach are from the Western
world (America, France, Britain, etc.). It would make some sense that the
notions of what Paradise is and how one gets there spring from a more
Westernised concept of spirituality, hence the fact that many of the Westerners
we see in Thailand tend to ignore the beauty of that culture and either stay in
watching American movies or go out and get drunk. This Western spirituality
returns as an undercurrent in the character of Keaty (Paterson Joseph), the
beach resident who brings Richard and his two friends, Françoise (Virginie
Ledoyen) and Étienne (Guillaume Canet), to the beach after they make the
literal leap of faith from atop a waterfall. Keaty, an Englishman, is said to
have only two loves in the world: Christianity and cricket. And there’s a
moderately recurring sentiment in Richard’s voiceover, as he makes occasional
reference to Paradise and sin. Within the beach community itself, they have
developed their own system of ritual and language. Every member is tattooed
with three marks on their arm, performed by the last person to arrive before
the new ones. They also play a game that involves learning a new language (in
this case, Serbian) simply by picking it up and learning odd phrases. Richard
gets much praise for his ability to pick up on this quickly.

As is unsurprising, the longer the residents spend in their
tropical paradise, the more reluctant they are to return to the main land. When
the group’s supply of rice needs replacing, the group’s leader, Sal (an on form
Tilda Swinton), a proverbial iron hand in velvet glove, announces that someone
needs to accompany her to the mainland for supplies. No one wants to go.
Partially because they don’t really want to leave their beautiful idyll, but
mainly because going back is now such an unpleasant experience. When you spend
your time in a gorgeous paradise, the act of jumping back into normal
civilisation, even temporarily, to be surrounded by the miserable wretches of
the real world as they stagger and vomit and bellow… it’s not surprising that
they want to stay away.

It’s on this run, having been effectively voted into going,
that Richard starts to get a better understanding of the maniacal ranting of
the man who led him to the beach, Daffy. When he meets Daffy, the man is
unhinged. Shouting, swearing, rambling about the parasites of civilisation. At
the time, Richard responded as most would: “No offence and all, but, you’re
fucked in the head, right?” Now, after having seen the beach and having
experienced paradise, Richard understands exactly what Daffy was talking about.
Returning to the hectic, grimy, decadent morass of everyday life isn’t just
upsetting, but actually kind of painful, even infuriating. Before this, Richard
has always had some understanding of the cost of keeping their new home a
secret, such as when he watches a fellow member plea for a dentist, but watches
as Sal (looking very similar to the Buddha statue at the film’s opening) flat
refuses. But Richard understands. “We have a secret here, right? Sometimes
people need to take a little pain to keep it that way.” These are words that will
certainly come back to haunt him. Now, having been changed by his new
surroundings, he knows that there is a cost, and is becoming increasingly more
comfortable with protecting paradise from those that he believes are not worthy of it.

This is itself at the heart of what The Beach tries to
discuss: the exclusionary nature of Paradise. Everyone that reaches the beach,
which before had only been something regarded as rumour or local legend, does
so by believing enough in its existence to put themselves at great physical
peril. When their faith is rewarded, one of their first thoughts is that this
new place must remain a secret, protected from outsiders at all costs.
Effectively, it’s the classic traveller vs. tourist dynamic. A traveller is one
who seeks out new places, hoping to soak up everything it has to offer before
the tourists come along and ruin it, exploiting it and making it just another
place to go. However, by putting conditions and exclusions on entry into
paradise, doesn’t that contradict what paradise truly is? Were it left up to
whomever was the first to reach Paradise to decide who was allowed in thereafter, the
exclusivity instilled would, by its nature, create disharmony. On his trip to
the mainland with Sal, he does say that they are special because they know,
they can live better than this, but that’s not true Paradise. It’s either open
to everyone or no one. Otherwise, Heaven is no better than one of those country
clubs that won’t let in minorities. And you certainly can’t protect it with
violence and force. As it turns out, Paradise corrupts.

There is plenty to think about underneath everything in The
Beach, however it does have more than a few problems, which does tend to
devalue the whole as a viewing experience. Numerous changes were made between the book and the film
and, as I mentioned earlier, these were clearly concessions made to the studio.
For example, there is a romance between Richard and Françoise in the film that
does not exist in the book. In the book, Richard does have feelings for Françoise,
but this never goes further, with Françoise remaining with Étienne. This would
rest thematically closer with the idea of something desired, but remaining out
of reach that runs through the story. However, in the film, Richard and
Françoise do get together, mainly because the studio can work better with a
romance plot, plus it’s nice to see pretty people get down in the sand. This
has something of a knock-on effect through the rest of the story, as now
Étienne is cast aside, and complications arrive later on in the film as a result. It’s not
a complete sell-out, as John Hodge does manage to tie it into what must be done
to maintain the secret of Paradise.

One of the more regular criticisms made about the film in
regards to differences from the novel is the lack of real development in
Richard’s character in regard to his obsession with war movies and video games.
These elements do come to play in the film, but they do seem hollower than they
would if it had been built better. As it is, sequences where Richard literally transposes
himself into a video game fantasy are what fill the gaps, or, on a more subtle
level, moments when Richard starts to unravel in the jungle strike a very
Apocalypse Now feel since Boyle and cinematographer Darius Khondji seem to be
purposely trying to recreate the lighting and atmosphere of that film’s final scenes,
as well as giving Richard a red head band, recalling The Deer Hunter.

The biggest problem with The Beach is that, in all of its
tone-hopping, going from romance to adventure to thriller, with war motifs and
religious undertones, it all feels a bit clumsy. Danny Boyle did say that if
the film had a smaller budget, he would have been more likely to ignore studio
directives. However, since he had been handed around $50million (easily the
biggest budget he’d been given at that point), he felt more obliged to
acquiesce to their demands. There was also an alternate ending not used, which
may be more of a downer, but would at least have felt truer to the film's message. And
because the filmmakers spent some time telling the story, and some time giving
the studios what they wanted, any potential subtext gets lost in the haze.

The Beach is a beautiful looking film, with many beautiful
people in it. And there isn’t really a bad show in there, though Robert Carlyle
and Tilda Swinton are the clear standouts, especially since they’re served with
some of the better-written roles. And it’s not like there is nothing worth
talking about, either. It just falls short too often to get a real
handle on what it wants to talk about.

Perhaps the real legacy of the film comes from the treatment
of the island itself during the production process. In order to make the
already gorgeous beach of Ko Phi Phi Lee a bit more “paradise-like”, 20th
Century Fox had crews bulldoze the beaches to flatten them and ripped up some
of the natural landscaping to widen the beach. They even introduced trees that
were not native to the land because they looked better… yeah, I know, right?
Fox did set aside money with which they could return the beach to its previous
natural state, but environmentalists still sued, claiming the ecosystem had been
permanently damaged. Some of the natural state of the beaches was restored by
the tsunami in 2004, but that same disaster actually also caused other portions
of the beach to literally collapse and break apart. In telling a story about the corruptive influence of
Paradise and the terrible things people will do protect it, the filmmakers
tried to improve on the look of a genuine island paradise and ruined it… bloody tourists.

Monday, 10 June 2013

Despite the huge hiatus I took from this already enormous
project, I think it should be pretty damn obvious at this point that movies
mean a lot to me. If they didn’t, I don’t think I’d be even remotely close to
the person I am today, let alone attempting to review every film I own one by
one on the Internet. I love movies, and so I especially like it when a film
comes out that so clearly comes from that same place in the filmmaker. Michel
Gondry is one of those filmmakers that can do this. Idiosyncratic, quirky,
absurd and possessed of a unique visual style, Gondry looked back to the films
of the past to tell a story of what they mean to people and how they can bring
them together through the acts of communal memory.

In Passaic, New Jersey, Elroy Fletcher (Danny Glover) runs a
video rental store in a condemned building he claims was the birthplace of jazz
legend Fats Waller. Facing foreclosure, Fletcher goes on a business venture,
leaving his foster son Mike (Mos Def) in charge of the store. However, when Mike’s
friend Jerry (Jack Black) tries to sabotage a nearby power station and becomes
magnetised, he inadvertently erases every tape in the store. Mike and Jerry
quickly hatch a plan to hide the disaster by making homemade versions of every
title to rent and save the store. With help from the local community, their
films develop a cult following.

When Gondry first talked to Jack Black about the project,
specifically the premise of two friends who accidentally erase all the tapes in
a video rental store and have to quickly make up new versions themselves, Black
assumed that it was to be a period piece, set in the 70s or 80s. Gondry
corrected him that it would be set today, that it would be a video rental store
that, now in a world of DVD players and digital playback, was now finally on
its way out. Right away, there is a rather wistful sadness to this idea. That
this store, its name of Be Kind Rewind now being something that's redundant in this modern
day, has held on for way longer than it really should have and is now on the
verge of collapse. This point is actually quite literally made, since the
entire building itself is due to be condemned, failing to meet some of the most
basic requirements for safety and public use. Progress is coming, whether they
want it or not.

The store’s owner, Mr. Fletcher, is clearly someone who
could never really hack it in a fast-paced world. Early in the film, whilst
having lunch with Mike and Jerry, they ask him why he was never married. He
answers, “Well, the common story is, the girl that you was gonna ask, you
waited too long to ask. She went on to marry somebody else and then you can’t
find anybody to compare to her. So, what happens? You get old.” And old itself
has a sort of double meaning here, too. Yes, Mr. Fletcher has indeed got old
and is now too far gone to catch up, but the force of progress that threatens
to oust him and end his business comes in the form of a neighbourhood
gentrification project, which plans to clean up the rundown area and rename it
Olde Passaic. Mr. Fletcher wants to keep his home and his business, but he
needs time to do it.

His foster son Mike (I say foster son, though I’m not really
entirely sure as to what the relationship actually is between the two, but it
seems the most likely) also wants to hold on to the old neighbourhood, as
opposed to the Olde neighbourhood, for a few reasons. Like Mr. Fletcher, he
wants to keep things the way they are. He wants Mr. Fletcher to be happy. And
he likes the neighbourhood, though when pressed he has kind of a tough time
giving reasons as to why. When he and Jerry argue about it, both have their
viewpoints on Passaic.

Jerry:
Mike, you have zero ambition.

Mike:
What?

Jerry: That’s your
problem. You’re gonna be stuck in this dump

for the rest of your life. Good
night.

Mike:
What? What? What’s a dump? What’s a dump? My shop

is a dump? You live in a
junkyard.

Jerry: Not just the store…
this whole city is a swamp.

Mike:
It’s a swamp now?

Jerry: Yeah, a dump swamp.
When you get stuck here, you’re

stuck for life. Come on, Mike,
what is so great about this town? Huh?

Mike:
… the people.

Jerry:
The people? You’re gonna make me cry. The people. The

only reason there’s anybody here
is because they have nowhere to go.

Perhaps Jerry’s less positive outlook can be forgiven. At
least Mike has reasons to hold some affection for his neighbourhood. He grew up
here, has something of a life, albeit not a particularly good one if we’re
honest. And he’s proud to have lived in the very building in which jazz great
Fats Waller was born. It’s the story that Mr. Fletcher has told him since he
was young, and is the story that we are told right at the start of the film,
that Harlem wasn’t the capital of the jazz scene back in the day; Passaic was.
How can you not want to hold on to such an important part of history when it’s
so close to you? That’s why he tries to paint a mural of Fats beneath an
overpass, to give the people of the neighbourhood something to look to and in
which they can take some level of pride.

However, with Jerry, he has comparatively even less than
Mike. Jerry does live in a junkyard, in a trailer, right next to a power
station. Worse still, he believes that microwaves from the power station are
causing his brains and the brains of everyone else to become affected, which is
all part of a government conspiracy to alter behaviour. To buy things, to
accept things… yeah, he’s a little strange. And people do dismiss him as the
paranoid oddball for his strangeness. The local cops even make something of a
joke of visiting his trailer in the night, taking turns knocking on his walls,
claiming to be from the government, that the black helicopters are here and
such… but Jerry has a plan: sabotage.

When Mr. Fletcher leaves town to go to a Fats Waller
remembrance ceremony, leaving Mike in charge, Jerry enlists Mike in his plan to
scale the fence of the power station and destroy it by swinging a grappling
hook onto it and……. well, that’s actually it. Jerry thinks that should be
enough to stop the microwaves from controlling everyone, somehow. Mike
initially declines, but goes along anyway (it’s kind of plot hole, but not a
particularly major one). However, halfway through the mission, Mike gets cold
feet about the plan and abandons Jerry and takes off. Jerry stays to follow
through, but in a moment that you’d think could only happen in films from the
80s, the power station fights back and sabotages Jerry.

The next morning, when Jerry visits the store to tell Mike
about the previous night, Jerry gets in an argument with a customer when he
keeps re-arranging all the tapes in the store. It’s not until a little later
that we find out that this is the moment when Jerry, having been magnetised by
the attempted sabotage, has inadvertently erased every single tape in the
store. After an initial period of worry, and under the threat that Mr. Fletcher
will be told how poorly Mike is coping, he has an idea. Grabbing a VHS camera
and the blank tape of Ghostbusters, he announces to Jerry, “I’m Bill Murray,
you’re everyone else.” They are going to personally remake every title in the
store, using themselves as cast and crew, from memory, thus keeping the store
in business.

Yes, the premise is bizarre as all hell, but don’t you just
love that? For the potential downer that Be Kind Rewind could become (the end
of VHS, for these people, for this neighbourhood), there is an absurd whimsy and warmth
about the whole thing that is incredibly charming. Instead of succumbing to the
inevitable, these two guys fight back, armed with a camera and some of the most
ridiculous props and costumes available. And as they go, their notoriety
escalates. They become so famous that people from all across the state come to
see what they’ve made, like their 20-minute version of Ghostbusters featuring a
ginger cat as Zuul and proton beams made of Christmas tinsel; their remake of
Boyz n’ the Hood in which gunshots result in a literal pizza on the ground
standing in for blood; or their take on RoboCop, where the titular character is
made entirely of autoyard scrap.

Not only do Mike and Jerry become moderately famous in the
city, but the community comes together to help them make more films,
effectively becoming an enormous production crew and repertory company.
Everyone bands together to make new versions of these films, but all in the uniquely
zero-budget way they called “Sweded”.

It’s in this nature of Sweding that we see some of the great
tricks of what is effectively guerrilla filmmaking, many of which Michel Gondry
used himself growing up. They utilise depth of field and perspective tricks to
create a sense of scale between a giant Jack Black-shaped King Kong and the
screaming woman he snatches through a window; they flip the camera to negative
in order to film night shots during the day; and they use cheap scale models
for scenes like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man attacking New York. It’s such a
wonderful combination of crass cheapness and incredibly imaginative technique.
What’s even better are some of the titles they claim to have Sweded, either
from what is seen on shelves or are mentioned during filming montages. Return
of the King is one such title that would be absolutely hilarious to see as
rendered by three people using a budget of about $20 and filmed in New Jersey.
On the other end of the scale is mentioned a Sweded version of Harmony Korine’s
Gummo, which, if you’re familiar with that film, proposes an idea of such
absurdity since Gummo is as close to the real world equivalent of Sweding films
as it’s possible to get. (Harmony Korine even outdid that in 2009 when he
made Trash Humpers, a film made entirely on VHS and edited using two VCRs
instead of actual editing equipment.) There is even a shot in Be Kind Rewind of genuinely
impressive staging in which we are presented with a montage of the films being
made, but it is actually one single, uninterrupted shot, with everyone moving
from set-piece to set-piece, taking in films as diverse as King Kong, 2001: A
Space Odyssey, Men in Black and Carrie. It’s a great shot.

Eventually, things do start to catch up with the Be Kind
Rewind crew, with representatives of movie studios looking to enforce copyright
law showing up to end their business. It’s here once again that the idea of
progress, or at least a contrary sense of progress, seems to enter the film.
Even though what they are doing is a violation of copyright law, the films that
they make are helping them to progress and make some headway in saving their
business, and also fostering a sense of community. Indeed, what they are doing can be found on the Internet and in
most film schools, with students remaking scenes and sometimes whole movies in
order to develop and progress their skills as filmmakers (I once happened upon
a short piece of film on an edit suite in which some students were re-enacting a
scene from Twilight… it was pretty funny). And this idea of creativity being
derived, borrowed, flat-out stolen from what has gone before has been
acknowledged by some great innovators in the world of art. Pablo Picasso
famously said that, “good artists copy; great artists steal” and that, “every
act of creation is an act of destruction”. Indeed, the history of creating new
art or technology or science is a history of taking what has come before and
reworking it into something else, something new. That the studios go after the
Be Kind Rewind crew is as much an act of desperation that their product will be
devalued as it is the defence of intellectual property. In a weird way, Gondry's film that revolves around the anachronism of VHS being overtaken by the new technology of DVD, and those that fight to save it, finds its parallel in the studio executives (like those who try to shut down this small movement) who find themselves on the line of being ousted by the surge of independent filmmakers who rise thanks to the new media opportunities of the Internet and digital distribution... hell of a thing, that.

This idea of taking from the past and turning it into what
you want or need it to be is addressed directly in the film when, after the
visit from the studio reps ends their Sweding run, the community band together
for a last chance at saving the neighbourhood by making something new. It’s no
longer about the community banding together over the shared love of other
films. Now, it’s about keeping that community together by creating something
that speaks for them all. As Jerry says, “We can make any movie we want… they
can’t sue us if we’re making new ones.” And the story they choose is simple… a
history of Fats Waller’s life as lived in Passaic. They want to tell the story
of someone who Mr. Fletcher called “a happy man.”

Given that the film is as much as ode to community as it is
to film, Michel Gondry embraced the real community of Passaic as much as he
could. Some roles were given to real residents of the area. Pretty much every
extra you see was local to the area they were shooting. And the final shot that
assembles the community at large is a genuinely heart-warming sight. In making
a film about a community coming together, Gondry really did bring a community
together.

Be Kind Rewind may require you to screw on something of a
whimsical head at certain moments (if you can take Jerry’s attempted sabotage
of the power plant as the hilarious throwback that it is, you’ll be fine), but
it is a truly warm and charming film, with a deep affection for film, for music,
for people. Everyone is great, from Mos Def and Jack Black’s odd double act to
the delightful Melonie Diaz to the slightly spaced out kookiness of Mia Farrow.
In this film, Gondry has created something of sincerity and obvious love, and it
is most certainly worth the watch.

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

MR. HARDY IS A MAN OF GREAT CARE, CAUTION AND DISCRETION.
MR. LAUREL WAS MARRIED, TOO.

Today, we going to be going back into the long, long ago…
well, the early 1930s. We’re going to look at a comedy short from the early
days of the “talkies” from one of the most legendary comedic duos ever… Laurel
& Hardy, classic combination of the skinny Limey and the fat Yank. Though
both began as established actors in their own right, they ultimately began
officially working together under the roof of Hal Roach’s studio in 1926, where they
stayed for 14 years, becoming one of the most beloved comedy treasures that Hollywood has ever given the world. During their time under Roach, they released the film that we
look at today - Be Big!

Just about to leave for the train station for a vacation in
Atlantic City with their wives, Stanley (Stan Laurel) and Oliver (Oliver Hardy)
get a phone call from a fellow lodge member who tells them a surprise stag
party is being held in their honour that evening. Initially hesitant because of
their plans, they accept and Oliver feigns illness to get out of leaving that
day, suggesting Stanley stay to look after him and sending the wives on ahead
by themselves. What follows is a series of physical pratfalls as the pair
attempt to get ready for their big night.

What’s that rule about comedy? You know, the famous one. The
one about how important something is to the telling of a joke. It’s only one
word. It’s the key to comedy. Why can’t I remember it? Well, I suppose I
shouldn’t feel too bad about not remembering that one rule, since it seems that
Laurel & Hardy and most other people involved in Be Big! had forgotten it,
too. There’s something ver-TIMING! That’s it! The most important thing in
comedy is timing! Thank God, that would have annoyed me for a long while.
Anyway, what was I saying? Oh right…

There’s something very laborious about this venture from the
guys in the bowler hats, like they're just going through the motions because it's time to make another film. The premise itself is actually a pretty decent set-up
for physical gaffs and energetic clumsiness. Two guys want to go to a party
with their friends, but have already made plans with their wives. As such, they
invent some scheme whereby they can get out of the plans they already have and
do what they want, all without their respective spouses being any the wiser.
Let’s be honest, it smacks of crazy shenanigans, which is exactly what Laurel
& Hardy were all about.

And probably the best thing going for the film was the general conceit
that gives the film its title. As Olly himself says, "No man is bigger than the excuses he makes to his wife. So... Be Big." It all ties to that idea that in order to have a successful marriage (read as: fool their
wives and get away with their scheme), they need to lie… a lot. This idea is actually a pretty common one: if you make up a lie, the smaller and more convincing it sounds, the less likely it is that people will believe it. As such, the best way to go is to have an excuse be so big and ridiculous and implausible that it would have to be true, so they would have to believe it. One guesses that this idea has been of greater use to comedy writers
over the years than people who actually are trying to lie effectively. I actually remember this idea being the basis behind an episode of Cheers ("Let Sleeping Drakes Lie") involving Norm, Tom Skerritt and a swarm of bees. And to be honest, Cheers did it better.

What really gets in the way of Be Big! being good is the incredibly
clumsy way in which the central conceit has been handled, and it’s all down to a combination of bad direction, poor timing and simply not knowing what to do with that idea. The film itself is
just under a half hour long, around 27 minutes or so. I’m not kidding when I
say that around 12 of those minutes are given over to one single joke: the pair
accidentally put the other’s boots on, Oliver becomes stuck in Stan's boots and they try to get
them off… almost half of the film’s duration sees the two clumsily, awkwardly,
utterly failing to free old Olly from these boots. He tries pulling them off
himself, Stan tries to pull them off, they try using a bootjack, they try using
brute force, all without success. In doing so, they break a chair, a mirror,
some curtains, Olly sits on a nail, and they each get their foot caught in the
other’s sweater. This may sound all zany and the like, but it feels like it
goes on forever. I understand they’re going for the hilarious notion of so much
bother caused by such a simple task, as is the mainstay of physical comedy, but
it’s just tiresome. And it’s all just basically one joke, repeated over and
over and over and over again. It constantly aims for silly and hits stupid almost every
time instead. As an example, there is a moment when Olly tries to explain to
Stan just how simple this process should be. He has Stan put on one of his (that
is, Olly’s) boots just so he can take it off and show the ease with which they
should be able to the same for Olly. However, this is just kind of ridiculous
considering we know the boot will come off Stan’s foot easier because it’s too
big for him. In fact, we previously saw him literally jump out of one earlier,
so this whole bit is just nonsense. And yes, I know that part of their dynamic was
that Olly would try to explain to Stan how simple some things should be with
disastrous consequences, but that doesn’t mean it always works.

Another problem comes from a trademark of both men: Olly’s
looking into the camera with consternation; and Stan’s looking awkwardly
confused. They, of course, do this several times throughout the film, but all
it does here is get in the way, stretching out the gaps in action and killing
what little momentum they managed to build. If the film were better paced, or the physical gaffs were better, these moments would add to the moment, as they do with the pair's other movies. Directors Horne and Parrott really
drop the ball in this instance since there was a way of bridging the gaps
between these gags without constantly stopping things. When the wives arrive at
the train station, they find out they’ve just missed their train and there
won’t be another one until tomorrow. As such, they get back in their taxi and
head home, saying how they can’t wait to see the look on their husbands’ faces.
That’s the last time we see them until the end. We could have cut back to
them, just once or twice, showing their progress, maybe giving them an obstacle
to draw out the journey a little, just to build a bit of tension and allowing quicker
set-ups between Olly and Stan’s boot-pulling attempts.

Of course, it’s all well and good me saying this 80 years
after the fact. Besides, there would have been some constraints to deal with,
the biggest of which likely being a reluctance to cut away from Laurel &
Hardy, who were the stars of the picture and the thing people wanted to see.
It’s doesn’t really excuse the problems, but does at least explain some of
them. The fact that they have only one comedy idea for the whole film which
just gets repeated again and again is the thing that remains without explanation
or excuse.

Be Big! isn’t really one of the pair’s better efforts and not a good place to start for those new to Laurel and Hardy,
mostly just feeling inane thanks to flat direction, rather choppy editing and
what feels like a complete lack of ideas given the golden ticket of the titular idea. Given that almost half of the film’s
running time is taken up with a single extended gag, which runs out of steam
very quickly, it would seem that this film was made as a piece of filler rather
than anything that was meant to last. Had the film been half as long, it would
likely have been greatly improved. As it is, it’s a rather untoward bump in the
golden comedy road for the duo.

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

In an interview back in 2010, Wes Craven was asked, given
his experience of scaring kids in film throughout the decades, what he thought
it was that scared kids today. He answered that what scared kids remained the
same pretty much regardless of time: “Adults. Incompetent parents, police that
don’t understand what’s really going on.” And though this question was relating
more towards his film My Soul to Take (which is just… just terrible), he’s not
wrong with regard to what scares kids. Everyone, regardless of age, is afraid
of being subjected to a stern authority against which they have no power (look
at the works of Kafka or Dostoyevsky for better ruminations on that subject),
but kids (as well as the elderly) are the ones that get the rawest end of that
problem. Being left to the whims of authority, which is effectively everyone
above their age, they end up feeling the brunt of whatever rules are put upon
them, with no say as to how fair or arbitrary they may be. And if those rules
start to push them in a terrible, even dangerous direction, what can they do
but get pulled along? If there is one director in the world who understood this
notion better than anyone, it’s not Craven… it’s Kinji Fukasaku… and he gave us
Battle Royale.

It's the beginning of the 21st Century, and the economy of
Japan is near a total collapse. Employment rates have crashed, students have
begun boycotting their classes and crime rates are rising. To deal with this
issue, the government approves a new law: the Battle Royale Act. One class is
randomly selected and the students are taken to an island, are each given a
weapon and three days to kill each other off. A new class of 42 has been
selected, and only one student can survive.

The choices of project that director Kinji Fukasaku’s made
over his roughly 40-year film career have much to do with experiences from his
youth, specifically during World War II. Barely aging in the double digits by
the time the war started, Fukasaku found himself working in a munitions factory
when his class was drafted into aiding the war effort in 1945. Being a
munitions factory, this was, of course, a target for Allied air raids. On one
of these raids, the factory was hit, with Fukasaku and his classmates getting caught in
the crossfire, and many ultimately being killed. Fukasaku himself said that he and
some others survived only by literally hiding under the corpses. At 15 years old,
Fukasaku had to help dispose of the bodies of his classmates, some of whom he
didn’t even get a chance to know. Suddenly aware of what he believed were lies told
by the Japanese government, from this point on, Fukasaku held a deep distrust
and hatred of authority, and this would then be reflected in his subsequent
film career. He spent much of his career making period samurai films, or
focusing on post-war Yakuza stories (it was he who brought us the Battles Without Honour
and Humanity films), but always maintained a focus on the struggling underdog,
often a former soldier or ex-con. Perhaps his most notable of films for the
“underdog going against authority” tale from this period of high output is
1972’s Under the Flag of the Rising Sun, in which a widow attempts to discover
the truth behind her husband’s death during the war from Japanese government
officials.

Fast-forward nearly thirty years and we find ourselves at the
film to be considered today, Battle Royale, the one that would act as both the film that
brought renewed interest in Fukasaku as a filmmaker, as well as Japan as a
serious filmic entity, but also as the last film the man would complete under
his own steam, sadly dying mid-production of the sequel Battle Royale II: Requiem.

However, there is a reason that Battle Royale was key in
bringing attention back to Japanese cinema with such force, and by extension
the whole resurgence of interest in Asian cinema in general… Battle Royale is a goddamn masterpiece.

Instead of his usual look back into the past, Fukasaku went
into a not-too-distant future by taking on the film adaptation of the novel by
Koushun Takami, published in 1999. Despite (or perhaps because of) some
controversy on its release, the novel became a surprise bestseller, and the
next year saw its adaptation into both a manga series (by Takami himself) and
the feature film we look at today. The script was written by Kenji Fukasaku’s
son, Kenta, which makes some degree of sense for a couple of reasons. On a practical
level, a story that follows a group of post-millennial teenagers would perhaps
pose something of a challenge to a man of nearly 70 years of age to maintain a
sense of verisimilitude. Though he may have held a strong spiritual connection
to youth in some way, that doesn’t mean he would necessarily be able to bring
that to the page. As such, having his son Kenta as the screenwriter helps to
bridge the generation gap between the director and the characters. And the
characters are vital in this film.

I get the feeling that it was very important to Kenji
Fukasaku that the audience understand these characters, or that we at least
take something from them, that they resonate somewhere with us. This should of
course be of great importance to all filmmakers and storytellers, but it would
be of particular importance to a man who had lost classmates under terrible circumstances without getting that
chance. As such, we get a little bit from almost every character, which is
something considering how many of them there are. We get something about their
family life, their hopes, their relationships. You get to see how these people
react when they are all given permission to kill, and the reasons why they
might want to. One of my favourite aspects of the film is to see how some characters
instantly go looking for their friends, or even the one from their class they
really liked in the hope of protecting them, even dying with them. It’s rather
affecting to see just how some of them won’t give themselves over to the
darkness of their situation, choosing to be better than that. It’s almost a
final act of defiance against the adults who put them there. Were I ever to be in that situation, I wonder if I'd be the same as them... I certainly hope so.

Another reason it works nicely to have Fukasaku Sr. and Jr.
working on this film together is that it also serves as a nice undercurrent to
a major theme of the film: that of parental relationships. Several characters
have an interesting, even defining relationship with a parent, or parental figure, such as
Nanahara’s emotional baggage from his mother’s abandonment and his father’s
suicide; Mimura’s relationship with his soldier uncle; and Kawada’s repeated,
if conflicting references to his father being the reason he’s so good at
medical care and cooking. Which rather brings us to the most visible parent in
the film… Kitano.

Former teacher to the class, now the instructor of the
program and the man overseeing this horrific ordeal, Kitano, played by the
almighty Takeshi Kitano in some sort of twisted version of himself (you know Takeshi's Castle? Yeah, same guy). He is really
the only adult we spend any time with over the course of the film. A former teacher,
abused and belittled by his students, as well as his own child, he is
effectively our model of authority in the film. And, despite what he becomes,
there are times when he does garner our sympathy. He shows up to teach the
children, only to be greeted by a message on the board informing him his
students took the day off because they wanted to. On leaving the classroom, he
is attacked by one of the students, slashed on his behind with a knife. It’s
hard to not feel something for the guy, to consider that all he may have wanted
was to help educate and guide the youth of Japan, only to be rejected in a
manner most callous. Indeed, that’s how Nakagawa sees him, a man cast aside for
no reason other than wanting to help. At one time, as we see in flashback, it
would seem that they look to have been friends of a sort – Nakagawa
seeing a lonely man in need of company; Kitano seeing a compassionate girl, and
a hope for the future. However, Kitano ultimately goes too far in his
disconnection and revulsion with the others of Nakagawa’s generation. It
doesn’t help that his relationship with his own daughter, whom we know only as a voice who also clearly
hates him, has compounded his loathing of the younger generation. He’s like Lee
J. Cobb’s Juror no.12 in 12 Angry Men, disgusted and angry with his own child, desperate to take it out on someone else, only taken to a horrifying extreme. The
most visible authority figure in the film is ultimately shown to be a full-blown
sadist, one of who gleefully sends children he knows off to slaughter each
other, and who even has no compunction about killing them himself. He is a
monster, but rather unsettlingly a monster that you can understand where he
came from.

It’s very important that we understand, to some degree at
least, the one who sends these children to die. In the preamble to the film, we
are told that by the point of the film’s temporal setting, Japan’s status as a
financial superpower in the world has, effectively, come to an end. The bubble
has burst, and the future of the nation’s inhabitants is no longer secure. Jobs
are becoming scarce, money is becoming short, and the hope that may have been
held by those growing up in this climate has now all but dried up. Despondent
and angry at a seemingly clear indication that there is nothing left for them,
the young abandon their education and career prospects for the simple nihilistic
thrill of enjoying what they can while it still exists. As it is, this is a
situation that was pretty much directly influenced by reality in Japan. From
the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, Japan’s economic growth was sustained by the
asset price bubble, where stock prices and real estate value was inflated to such a point that it ultimately burst, plunging Japan into a recession that it
took over a decade to finish dropping into (look into Japan’s so-called “Lost
Decade” for more on that). Jobs were lost, money was lost, hope for the future was diminished.
It’s exactly this kind of post-Lost Decade world where the world of Battle
Royale takes place. This fits well into Fukasaku’s overall body of work as he
has had a preoccupation with what kind of future can be formed in the ashes of
a faltering, apparently hopeless governing authority.

This not only offers a very bleak vision of a very dark
future, but it also offers an interesting take on politics, specifically the
value of a proportional response to a given problem (and yes, I basically just
lifted a line from The West Wing there). Within the world of Battle Royale, the
government was faced with a particular problem: the revolt of a disaffected,
dissatisfied youth. Their futures were squandered, so they responded by rejecting
what future was left for them. Obviously, this would create a great sense fear
amongst the older generations, since they now no longer had anyone to whom
they can hand over the reigns. Along with that fear, there would be no small
amount of indignation, that these young people would be so cavalier in their
lack of foresight, that they would have such apparent disrespect as to give their
elders the finger and invite them to spin. The response of the authorities was
not a proportional one. They passed a law that allowed them to randomly select
groups of children that would then be forced to murder each other, and thus
solve their problem. It’s an ugly decision born of a brutal and heartless
bureaucracy made way out of proportion to the problem it tries to solve. It may
seem like a harsh indictment of Japanese authorities, which is perhaps why they
sought to have the book, manga and film banned, not to mention the difficult
transition beyond its borders. However, I’m sure Fukasaku, who you’ll remember
had no love of his government
during WWII, wouldn’t care too much if they took offence to that. I’m sure that
was part of his point.

The influence of Battle Royale can’t really be
underestimated. As previously stated, Fukasaku’s film turned a great deal of
attention to the resurgence of film coming from Asia in general, wetting the
world’s appetite for what it would come to get from Japan, China, South Korea,
Thailand, Taiwan… you get the idea. However, more specifically, the film has a
profound effect on many individuals, too. Fukasaku’s son, Kenta, made his debut
in the film world as writer on this film, and he would go on to make his way
as a filmmaker in his own right, following with Battle Royale II: Requiem in 2003
(taking over directing duties after the death of his father), as well as
several other films, like X-Cross, Black Rat and We Can’t Change the World.
But, We Wanna Build a School in Cambodia. Many of the young actors in Battle
Royale would go on to have further careers as actors, too. In fact, one of them
would cross paths with another filmmaker who has taken a great amount of
influence from Kinji Fukasaku recently… Quentin Tarantino.

After Jackie Brown’s release in 1997, it would be six years
before Tarantino would return to our screens, which he ultimately did with the
first part of his highly stylised samurai revenge epic, Kill Bill Vol. 1.
Amongst the many now iconic aspects of that film, several things jump out
immediately as being direct lines to Fukasaku. Generically, there is much
drawing upon the world of samurai and Yakuza flicks, where Fukasaku spent his
early career. Then, there is the casting of Sonny Chiba, a Fukasaku regular
with whom he made many features (Chiba even repeats his line from Samurai
Reincarnation - “If you encounter God, God will be cut.”). Further to casting,
Chiaki Kuriyama, who played Chigusa in Battle Royale, also appears in Kill Bill
Vol. 1 as Gogo Yubari, the psychotic bodyguard dressed in the schoolgirl’s
uniform. And lest we forget, the music from the trailer that was played
freaking everywhere… Battle Without Honour and Humanity by Tomoyasu Hotei, a
piece which gained its title from Fukasaku’s Yakuza film series mentioned earlier. It’s worth
noting at this point that, in 2009, Tarantino made a video list for Sky Movies
in which he listed his favourite movies to come out since he became a filmmaker
in 1992. Although most of the list is simply given alphabetically, the first
film he names is his outright number 1, the film he most wishes that he had
made... can you guess what that movie is? Have a watch of that video here, and definitely check out the other films
on his list, too.

I’m not kidding when I say how good Battle Royale is. It
works on many levels, as a horror, an actioner, science fiction, drama,
thriller, even romance. Generically, it manages to run the gamut, but does so in a way that I
don’t think ever feels clunky or awkward. Fukasaku keeps a firm hand on the
film and, with a running time of around the two-hour mark, the film positively gallops along. The
stakes are never in question, and everyone in this film sells it brilliantly.

I’m going to stop writing now, because you need to run and go watch this movie
now… go… Run!

Saturday, 22 October 2011

The first film to be considered after all that Batman goodness seems a rather appropriate one for a couple of reasons. On the back of The Dark Knight’s telling of one man’s attempts to sink society into a chaotic frenzy, today’s film takes the docu-drama approach to a real-life event when that almost actually happened. It’s also particularly timely because there are, at the time of writing, numerous protests and demonstrations going on across the US under the banner of Occupy Wall Street, which relied very heavily on the Internet as a means of organisation. For actor Stuart Townsend’s first (and so far only) crack at writing and directing, he chose to look at one of the most famous and incendiary topics that occurred in the final year of last millennium. Taking its title from one of the media labels attached to the event, this is Battle in Seattle.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a body that is under near constant protest and objection by a significant portion of society. At the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle, thousands of activists arrive to protest on a number of issues and causes. However, riots and chaos eventually consume the city as demonstrators try to stop the WTO meetings. The events are told from numerous perspectives, such as protestors, the media, the police force, the government and the WTO delegates.

If I’m honest, I had no idea about what happened in Seattle until I watched this film. For all of it being one of the most significant events in recent US history, important for several reasons, one of which was forcing the mainstream media to engage with the concept of the Anti-Globalisation Movement, which had been largely ignored by most outlets until 1999, I honestly can’t remember a single instance of hearing about it at the time. I didn’t have much interest in global events then, and still don’t to some degree. Besides, there were other things that I did hear about which got my attention much more: the shootings at Columbine, which shook a lot of people up for a long time; the beginning of the impeachment process against President Clinton; Scotland opened its first Parliament in 300 years; there was war in Kosovo; worldwide preparations for the Millennium were underway; and, who could forget, Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released upon the world. When you think about it, there was a hell of a lot that happened in 1999.

Given the circumstances, can I really be blamed for letting that one thing in Seattle slip by?… I think the answer to that is yes. At least, that’s probably what most people who were involved would say, and I’d have to agree a little bit. The Clinton impeachment was a joke; the Millennium plans were stupid; I don’t have a patriotic bone in my body, so couldn’t care less about the Parliament; and, well, fuck The Phantom Menace. The only other things of great concern (at least from the list I’ve made) were Columbine and Kosovo, which, without meaning to detract in any way from the gravity or tragedy of those events, happened months before Seattle. And considering the global implications of what was being discussed and demonstrated against at the WTO conference and the subsequent riots, it probably would have been prudent to cast the occasional glance towards it every now and then.

One person that was certainly paying attention at the time was Stuart Townsend, the Irish actor known best for appearing in high-profile flops and never quite getting the break needed to become really big. He’s certainly not untalented, as he’s shown in past smaller ventures like Shooting Fish and Resurrection Man, but it’s never quite swung far enough to get him as known as he maybe should be. As it is, he turned his hand to writing and directing a relatively low-budget feature that took a multi-stranded view of the events that occurred over those few days around the end of November in 1999. The film took in the perspectives of the protestors and demonstrators, the police, the mayor, and some of the delegates and speakers in attendance at the conference. To fill the various roles within the film, Townsend assembled a damn impressive cast: André Benjamin, Jennifer Carpenter, Woody Harrelson, Martin Henderson, Joshua Jackson, Ray Liotta, Tzi Ma, Ivana Milicevic, Connie Nielsen, Michelle Rodriguez, Rade Serbedzija, Channing Tatum, Charlize Theron… sweet Jesus, that’s a lot of talent in there, especially in a film with a budget of less than $10 million.

Now, when taking on a film like Battle in Seattle, it’s difficult to try and identify just what it is you want to do with it. It’s a very emotive subject, with plenty of ammunition for addressing real world concerns, and it damn sure has some fine talent to be utilised in discussing those issues, but it’s also a minefield of potential problems. If Townsend were to follow just one group, it offers the chance of deeper involvement with those characters and motives, but can end up feeling uneven, lopsided, unfair in the portrayal of everyone else. As it is, he’s gone for the other approach, taking in all sides, which can make for a more balanced account of events, but can also hinder the depth of exploration of these characters, particularly in a film that’s only 90 minutes long. There are also the political aspirations of the film. Films like these need to be able to provide some sort of insight into the cause being observed, either good or bad. Be too forceful and you’ll just end up alienating people; whereas being half-assed about it will just seem like a waste of time, effort and potential. Then there’s the simple level of filmmaking and drama. No matter what your intentions with the final product, if it fails as a film, with poor characters and lacking in drama, it will generally be dismissed or ignored, making it all for nought. For his first time as the primary creative force behind a film, Stuart Townsend has picked himself a tough one.

Now, the temptation for some would be to look at one and ignore the other. It’s either to be taken as a political text where its existence as a film isn’t really a concern; or it’s a filmed drama to be considered, with the political worries left to others to take from it what they will. Doing only one of these would be to look at only half of the film, which I’m sure Townsend et al would be rather annoyed with. So, I’ll take a swing at both.

First, the filmic aspects. With so many characters being looked at over the course of Battle in Seattle, there is the feeling of being mildly short-changed on some level, which comes simply from being spread too thin. Arcs are there to some degree, but feel squashed down, underdeveloped, or just unnecessary. It’s largely left to the skill of the actors involved to flesh out whatever they get. For example, Martin Henderson’s Jay (who does have an interesting backstory) and Michelle Rodriguez’s Lou (who seems built mainly on platitude) seem to have some sort of romantic thing going, but it’s never entirely convincing because it never goes anywhere and just distracts from what’s going on. Removing this subplot, or the character of Lou altogether, would have freed things up a bit. The relationship between Jay and Sam, played by Jennifer Carpenter, feels more substantial, but is left relatively untouched, which greatly detracts from Sam’s overall impact in the film.

On the other side of things, there’s Ella and Dale (Charlize Theron and Woody Harrelson), a couple in the fifth month of pregnancy. She works in an upscale clothing store downtown, and he’s a cop set for crowd control/riot duty for the demonstration. We get a bit more time with these two, and their relationship is much better drawn, and anchored by two of the best performances in the film. As things start to go south and all hell breaks loose, we get a much better sense of these characters, both individually and together, the pain and love between them. We get much more from these two than people who are more directly in the fray.

Other characters are a bit lacking, though are handled very well. Mayor Jim Tobin, played by Ray Liotta, spends most of his time just looking very worried and trying to find solutions to the escalating problems, but Liotta shows the strain in the man nicely, his voice audibly cracking when he is forced to declare a state of emergency in the city. Rade Serbedzija also does some great understated work as Dr. Maric, who is set to deliver a presentation to the conference about making medicine more available to Third World countries, but is largely denied his chance because demonstrators won’t let the intended audience into the building. The frustrated worry on his face is clear, which eventually bubbles over as the few who made it to his talk begin to walk out. Isaach De Bankolé actually has a similar role as delegate Abasi, looking to get more respect on the international stage. And André Benjamin makes a lot from relatively little as Django, maintaining an upbeat, though not impervious spirit in the face of being ignored by the press and arrested by the police.

There’s one character, Johnson (Channing Tatum), who suffers being a bit stock, which is rather reflected in the most basic name possible. He’s a young cop who can’t wait to get out there and enforce the law on these protestors, but changes his tune when he finds himself on the wrong end of a billy club. That’s kind of it. He does get some dramatic splash-back from his friendship with Dale, but that’s just a residual thing.

And then there’s the media, represented by Jean, played by Connie Nielsen. She’s an on-the-streets TV reporter, going live from the demonstration, and who plunges into the melee with her cameraman when it all hits the fan. She’s certainly not unwilling to chase the story, nor is she shy of ignoring her bosses and dropping the story in favour of lending a hand, either to injured parties or making her own statement… I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to make of her. She’s too individual to be “the media”, but then that rather cuts down on her as an effective representation of her field. I certainly liked her and thought Nielsen was good, but that may be it. Her own on-air protest is okay, but it’s a bit fleeting and doesn’t seem like it has a huge impact… I don’t know. For the amount of importance placed on the media in such instances, you just expect the character to have way more dramatic weight. It’s just a bit anaemic.

As can perhaps be gathered, Townsend’s script is relatively hit-and-miss, with most of the responsibility being placed on the actors for covering holes. As a director, he’s certainly got some great moments on the screen. The demonstrations and riots do have a good feeling of being in amongst it all, the camera often taking on the literal role of a demonstrator’s POV, placing the viewer in direct firing line of mace-wielding police. There are some effective bouts of claustrophobic panic as people run every which way, too. Amidst all of the emotive thrall of riots and people getting beaten and pepper-sprayed (a fair bit of this comes from actual news footage not dissimilar to those being seen at the OWS protests), Townsend has also actually done a pretty good job setting the geo-political stage. The film begins with a sequence explaining whom the WTO are, why they were built and why they get protested so much. It’s clear, concise and effectively done to aid people like me who need the crash course.

However, Townsend’s clarity does rather ebb away as the film goes on. The film seems to have the same problem that occurred during the demonstrations, which is that it allows all the different factions to come along and distract from what was the central issue in the beginning. Points of hope and despair are dropped about so casually that, by film’s end, you’re not sure if anything was actually accomplished, or even could be. Certainly, most of the characters we followed seem happy, some even calling it all a success, but a final series of titles and photos would suggest that nothing was really achieved.

And this sort of brings me on to attempting to engage with the political side of things: what does this film actually want to achieve? I suppose the short answer would be that the film wants you to sit up, take notice, get involved, fight the good fight. However, it makes it seem like, in the end, it’s all rather hopeless. There are no villains (except for the faceless WTO), but only differing opinions, tactics, causes. Everyone ends up treading on the others’ toes, which drowns out the message at the centre of it all. Political posturing gets in the way of the media, which gets in the way of the demonstrators, who get in the way of the delegates and doctors, and since the demonstrators lack direct action, it brings on the anarchists, who smother the protests and set off the police, who then go clubbing their way through the masses whilst under orders from upper echelons who are taking political pressure because the businesses (big and small) are being affected. Even within the demonstrators, there’s arguments over which causes come first, like labour versus poverty versus corporate greed versus environment versus health… good God, it does go on. It’s no bloody wonder a clear message is difficult to grab hold of.

Now, obviously, you don’t expect answers from films like these. If it were able to answer the problems it looked at, then we wouldn’t really have those problems anymore, and we clearly do, as evidenced by the OWS protests happening right now. For those who aren’t too sure what that’s all about, here’s a very potted version:

Occupy Wall Street is an ongoing series of protests in New York and other states that seek to resolve the growing socio-economic inequality in the world and end the influence of corporate lobbying on Washington politics. It was mostly co-ordinated through social network sites like Facebook and began on September 17th 2011. It started when, back in July, a Toronto-based counter-culture magazine called Adbusters posted an article, #OCCUPYWALLSTREET, which appealed to have 20,000 people to assemble in Lower Manhattan, setting up tents, kitchens and “peaceful barricades” and thereby occupying Wall Street. The idea is basically to demand that President Obama ordain a presidential commission whose job it will be to end the influence of money in US politics. On September 17th of this year, an estimated 1,000 protesters gathered in Lower Manhattan despite police blockades surrounding the Wall Street Stock Exchange. Initially, there wasn’t much news coverage, but that changed when the demonstrators tried to march north and were confronted by police officers, leading to dozens of arrests. In the fray, two female protesters were sprayed with pepper spray, which was caught on video and instantly hit YouTube. This in turn triggered a call for Internet Vigilantism, to which many responded by posting the identity, including a photo, of the officer responsible. Other troubles came when around 1,500 protestors tried to march across the Brooklyn Bridge on October 2nd, but were met with heavy police resistance, with more than 700 protestors arrested for violating the law of occupying the roadway. Many protestors have gone on record as saying they felt like they were “lured into a trap,” having been escorted part of the way across the bridge before finally being contained. After this, similar protests sprouted in other cities, like Boston, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. The movement has been accused of having a lack of direction, though most participants feel their goal is clear: to end the overwhelming influence of corporations and the wealthy in governmental policy-making, and to promote an economic system that benefits everyone, ensuring fairness and equality for all socio-economic walks of life.

Sound familiar? After having watched Battle in Seattle, it does to me. It all actually lines up with the final feeling you get left with at the end of the film, which is this: The old issues keep coming back, no matter what. Townsend clearly wants people to get involved, but it presents such an overwhelming task that you’d be hard pressed to find someone who’d be genuinely inspired by it all. I feel more smothered in all of this understanding and balance. You’re likely to feel more impotent and frustrated than driven and motivated…

I’m looking over what I’ve written in all this and, typically, it looks like I’ve tied myself in knots trying to get to grips with the enormity of the real issue at the film’s core. And this is what happens. You may feel the need to act, but it all seems so pointless. You want to help, but you see the myriad ways in which it can be short-circuited. Whilst it’s not a completely depressing affair, it’s not the hopeful film it needs to be to inspire.

God, I should’ve just stuck to the film review side of things. That I can do.

Battle in Seattle is, if nothing else, an interesting film. It highlights important issues, brings a significant event to the attention of people who may have missed it in all the pre-Millennium stuff, and gives people something to talk about. However, I get the feeling that Townsend wants people to do more than just talk about it, which I’m not really sure comes off. That the film was a huge failure at the box office (it made less than $1million) would suggest that few saw it and so therefore it’s impact was minimal. I would say to find it and give it a watch. It may inspire, it may not, but it deserves at least one viewing and will make you that little bit better informed, which is never a bad thing.

Thursday, 20 October 2011

Following the huge success of Batman Begins, audiences were hungry for a sequel. With one strike, Christopher Nolan had all but completely eradicated the memory of the Schumacher debacle and restored hope in the Batman films by putting the Dark back in the Dark Knight. Of course, now that the groundwork was done, the task was even greater - he had to outdo himself. Nolan was understandably hesitant about returning to Gotham, much like Burton was after his first Batman film. However, the main thing that brought him back was the chance to look at and reinterpret a particular character from the Rogue’s Gallery: the Joker, arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest villain in the comic book world. Amidst near constant fan speculation, hype and the kind of expectations that would instantly cripple any other film, in 2008, Christopher Nolan released The Dark Knight.

Six months into his crime-fighting career, Batman (Christian Bale) is close to ending organised crime in Gotham, with help from Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and new D.A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). In a last attempt to stop this from happening, the mob turns to the Joker (Heath Ledger), a dangerous psychopath intent on engulfing Gotham in chaos and violence. Batman’s struggle against the Joker becomes very personal as the villain pushes everyone to the very brink of madness and moral collapse.

At the end of Batman Begins, Jim Gordon delivers a monologue on the nature of escalation in the fight against crime. He tells Batman, “We start carrying semi-automatics; they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar; they buy armour-piercing rounds. And you’re wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops.” It’s a simple, elegant, positively Newtonian way of addressing how one thing begets another. And from this comes the root of conflict within The Dark Knight, where Batman is confronted with the first direct reaction to his method of fighting crime. By employing some extreme means of restoring order, his nemesis is one who would be even more extreme in order to create chaos. And that last word is very important: Chaos.

The Joker describes himself as an agent of Chaos, with no real plan other than to destroy everyone else’s plan. He looks at the other people in Gotham - the police, the criminals, the politicians, even Batman - and sees how weak and pathetic their plans are. They all want some kind of order, an order that benefits them, and one that rests in contradiction to the others. Not only does this provide a great deal of enjoyment for the Joker, but it gives him the chance to ask his questions of these people: If you’re going to reorder society, what makes one person’s plans any better than the others?… What’s the point of trying to instil order with rules that can’t stand up to real strain?… Why not just do away with all the rules and let chaos reign?… Why so serious? To this end, the Joker has a fondness for games, particularly those that force the players to break their own rules of conduct and morality, like having three rival henchmen fight to the death to which of them can join his crew, or the infamous ferry boat game. His games are never particularly fair, but then they don’t have to be, and that’s the point. In a scene where Batman interrogates him, the Joker delivers his view of the world.

Joker: You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first

sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show

you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they’ll eat each

other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.

Not only is this an utterly chilling monologue, but it’s also unnervingly convincing as a stance on societal morality. For all of the influences behind the Joker on a level of design and performance, it would seem that the horrifying mix of intelligence and murderous nihilism that makes up the root of his persona is akin to that of Charles Manson, and that makes him goddamn terrifying. On the two occasions when someone seeks to “teach him some manners,” the Joker easily turns things around on his would-be teacher, likely because the mere fact that they have tried to beat their rules into him means that they have already lost the fight.

Batman isn’t exactly very far from this guy, and they both know it. As I talked about in my Batman Begins review, his weapons are generally the same as those of the city’s criminals, like fear and brutality. The only difference is that he uses them on those same criminals. He’s a hero seemingly only by virtue of his targets. And it’s precisely because of these methods that they create someone like the Joker. When Batman finds Harvey trying to extract information from one of the Joker’s henchmen, he tells him that it’s useless, that the henchman in question is a paranoid schizophrenic from Arkham Asylum, “the kind of mind the Joker attracts.” Of course, the corollary of that is to acknowledge that Batman attracts minds like the Joker’s. Batman never had problems fighting the mob or the more common criminal element of the city before, because they had rules. Batman only had one rule so could fight them because he was, to some degree, much worse than them, which is why they were so scared of him. In the Joker, the Dark Knight has found someone without identity, loyalty, rules, empathy or limits. Make no mistake, Batman is scared of the Joker. In order to fight someone like him, Batman would have to break his own rule and become something worse, which is what the Joker has wanted all along. In that purple-suited nutcase, he is shown just how fine that line between them really is and the seeming inevitability that he will cross it.

The darkness in The Dark Knight is prominent, but hope isn’t ignored in all of this. Indeed, without hope, the Joker would have nothing to try and break down. Hope in this world is represented not by Batman, but by Harvey Dent, referred to so regularly as Gotham’s White Knight. Harvey is such an important figure for so many reasons. He’s smart and courageous, standing resolutely against corruption and crime, even if he does it alone, and he does it all without wearing a mask. He’s not just the ray of light for the city, but for Bruce Wayne, too. Wayne sees in him a way out, someone to accept the challenge of cleaning up the streets the right way, and allowing him the chance to hang up his cape for good. Harvey knows this and seems willing and able to do it. Batman calls Harvey “the best of us,” specifically relating to himself, Harvey and Gordon, but also in a more general sense. Harvey is the best of society, decent, capable and with great integrity… and that’s exactly why the Joker goes after him. As we’ve learned, the Joker wants to break down society, with its rules and codes and laws that are only as good as those that make them. To prove this point, he chooses to make an example of Harvey Dent, making him twisted and ugly and a hideous living embodiment of a society at war with itself. He becomes someone like Bruce Wayne: consumed by anger and pain, driven to act on it. As such, he becomes a corrupted agent, not of chaos or anarchy, but of chance, a warped instrument of fate that leaves a trail of death up to the flip of a coin. He becomes Two-Face.

Beyond the direct implications of chaos and morality, Nolan has managed to work in a sort of tragic love story, too. Bruce Wayne still holds onto the hope that, should he be able to give up being the Batman, he and Rachel Dawes will finally be able to be together. After all, she did make a promise to this effect in Batman Begins. However, in the time that Wayne has been fighting crime, Rachel has found that she can’t wait around for Bruce to give up his alter ego. She has fallen for Harvey Dent, which would really have to sting. Not only is Harvey capable of taking on the criminal world of Gotham himself without gadgets or a mask, but in doing so he is also able to win the affections of Rachel. On some level, this would perhaps act as an extra push for Bruce to give up his crime-fighting ways, passing the torch to Harvey, or rather saddling him with the burden, and thereby freeing himself up to pursue a relationship with Rachel. However, Rachel has already made up her mind. The Batman will always be inside Bruce, and she knows that there will never be room for another in his life, even after he quits. The darkness, the psychosis will always be there. Harvey is clearly the better choice because he is really is the better man. That these modest hopes end so badly for all of them just plunges them all into despair.

The supporting players become so much more in all of this, too. Alfred, having been established as a guiding light to Bruce Wayne, continues to act in a way that makes him more than just a butler. He protects Bruce from the things that would hurt him, threaten his already questionable mental stability. It’s perhaps precisely because he has Alfred that Bruce is able to hold onto that last remaining sliver of decency and faith, that he never succumbs to the Joker’s efforts of corruption and destruction. And it’s never done in a way that amounts to directly telling him what to do, but more advising him in a way that allows Bruce to make his own decision. Jim Gordon becomes a more prominent figure, not just professionally (he finally attains his status as Commissioner), but in the grand scheme. He acts as the midway point between Harvey and Batman. He’s a decent man trying to do good, but by working with the corrupt and dishonest, he’s somewhat tainted by them. He’s the most direct and relatable version of us onscreen. He tries to make the best he can with the means at his disposal, but sometimes that just isn’t good enough. Is it a bit much to say that when he tells Harvey he’s sorry for allowing what happened that it’s metaphorically us telling the corrupted and ugly face of society that we’re sorry? Perhaps, but it’s certainly not without basis. Lucius Fox also serves as another good example of decency within the film, but a decency that knows when lines must be crossed (he continues to assist and protect Wayne as Batman) and when they shouldn’t be (his horror upon being presented with Batman’s new sonar computer system). Even Sal Maroni, the new head of the Falcone crime family, has his place as both bad guy and good guy.

On a production level, The Dark Knight is near flawless. As I’ve more or less said, the script for the film is superb. Really, really superb. The story was conceived by David S. Goyer around about the time he was coming up with Batman Begins, though the actual scripting duties fell to Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan, who wrote the script for Memento back in 2000. Nolan’s vision of Gotham is noticeably different from the previous film. It’s a bit of a cleaner look, less infused with that griminess, which is probably an allusion to the effect Batman has had on the city, cleaning it up, as it were. The design of the characters is equally great (I’m rapidly running out of positive adjectives here). Batman has been redesigned to be more agile, freer in movement, but still effective in combat. Also, he’s been given a new vehicle, the Bat-pod. It’s a cool bike, though it did pain me that it came at the cost of the Tumbler. Then there’s the Joker, who looks genuinely maniacal, from his punk-influenced clothes to his make-up, which has the occasional effect of making him look somehow infected.

The performances themselves are a gallery of fine work. Christian Bale continues to do a damn good job as Bruce Wayne/Batman. In the same way that Bruce would be a bit more comfortable as Batman, Bale is a bit more comfortable in the performance. A lot of people actually found this to be a little flatter than he previous turn, but the emotion of Batman Begins was more raw, he was a character still struggling with how to channel his anguish. The Bruce of The Dark Knight has had some time to get used to it, and more importantly has found an outlet for his aggression, even if it is “beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands.” Something else a lot of people found off about the performance was the voice, which was different from that of the previous film, where the vocal change was more subtle. Here, he growls much more. Honestly, I’m fine with this voice for a few reasons: 1) Fear - Batman is supposed to be scary, and regardless of what many people say, if someone started threatening and snarling at you in that voice, you’d be scared; 2) Practicality - You certainly can’t say that Batman’s voice and Bruce Wayne’s voice are similar under these circumstances, so it’s not as easy for people to link the two; 3) Persona - It’s a mark of Bruce’s psychosis that he keeps doing the voice, even when just talking to Lucius, who knows who he is; and 4) Post-production - Though Bale did do the voice, it was Nolan who amped it up in the edit, so it was a conscious decision on the part of the director and, goddamn it, in Nolan we trust.

Aaron Eckhart is superb as Harvey Dent. He holds himself with the great poise and stature throughout. From the get-go, Eckhart looks like someone you can have confidence in, that you can place your trust in. His political slogan was ‘I Believe in Harvey Dent’, and Eckhart makes a damn sure that the audience can do just that. And he handles the shift to Two-Face with great skill. It’s not a complete break of character, as if making the transition from Henry Jekyll to Edward Hyde. This is still the same man, but defeated, broken, torn apart by the machinations of a lunatic. Eckhart plays these two sides so well, in contrast and parallel, that it’s so easy to be convinced by the character. And the horrifying design of the look of Two-Face made this even easier. It’s grotesque, almost painful to look at. Any potential for it to be regarded as darkly amusing is removed by Eckhart’s anguished conviction behind it all. He’s a man angered and hurting, inside and out, and he’s looking to take that out on the people responsible.

Then… there’s Heath Ledger. When Ledger was announced as the choice to take on the role of the Joker, many were not convinced about the decision. Most were incredulous that the guy who once played some gay cowboy could hope to play a part that was last done by Jack Nicholson, and to great and lasting effect. Even the film writer Philip French (of whom I am a great admirer) said in his review of Batman Begins, “[N]o one would be foolish enough to compete with Jack Nicholson’s 1989 Joker.” What in the hell made Nolan think this would work? When asked, his response was simple: “Because Heath is fearless.” I don’t care who says it, that’s a good answer, and he sure wasn’t wrong. Ledger is unbeatable in this film. As strong as the other performances are (and they are), Ledger utterly destroys everyone else. It’s a performance so wholly conceived and convincing that you find yourself longing for him to be onscreen because he’s so damn electric. Jack Nicholson’s Joker was a malevolent lunatic, but there was still something fun about him; Ledger’s Joker is a full-blown psychotic, murderous, sadistic, and just scary as hell. Just watch the scene where he films his tormenting of a “Son of Batman”, listen to the viciousness in his voice and that laugh… shudder. And it’s as complete and committed a performance as Ledger ever gave, and he had some great roles in CV (that gay cowboy one was one them). Just listen to the voice, watch the mannerisms, the genuine glee in his campaign of chaos. So completely caught up in his character and the film was I that it wasn’t until his final scene that I remembered that Ledger had already passed away by the time the film was released. It occurred to me just as the Joker and Batman were having their final words of the film, and it made the moment he says, “I think you and I are destined to do this forever,” so much harder to take. I knew that not only would we never get to have Ledger around for what would have been an awesome career, but we’d never even get the chance to see this Joker again. And as much as people would be hard-pressed to follow Nicholson’s performance as the Joker, it’s going to be pretty much impossible to follow Ledger.

Rachel Dawes came with a casting change, going from Katie Holmes (who I maintain did a fair job in the last film) to Maggie Gyllenhaal (who is one of the bravest actresses of her generation). Contrary to popular belief, it was Holmes that turned the role down, leaving it open for recasting. And Gyllenhaal does give the role what Holmes tried to do. Rachel seems more capable, more mature, better equipped to handle the stresses of her life in the hands of Gyllenhaal. Given the pull of the job and being torn between Harvey and Bruce (another of the film’s relationship triangles), I get the feeling that this would have proved too much for Holmes. However, Gyllenhaal carries this off wonderfully. She’s a strong and capable actress, and this shines through very well, but still holding a degree of vulnerability. It’s a great show.

Gary Oldman typically does a really great job as Gordon, giving a performance that’s understated and naturalistic and solid as a rock. Oldman has always been one of the best at doing a lot with very little, so when he’s given a more prominent part to play in all this, he is able to do some excellent work. Michael Caine continues to bring a solid air of class and dignity to it all, with a dry delivery and warmth. And Morgan Freeman continues to be a presence of great stature and really funny. Just watch how he handles the employee who looks to blackmail Bruce Wayne when he discovers his secret. It’s absolute gold.

There are a couple of holes in proceedings again, though most people (again, including me) didn’t notice them the first time round… or second time… or seventh. One comes from the prisoner transport scene, when the vehicles taking Harvey Dent to jail after he claims to be Batman are forced to take the underground route. They get diverted when a burning fire engine (typical Joker humour) is placed in their path and they need to find an alternate route. Strictly speaking, they could have just gone along the other side of the road. Traffic was clear and there was no obvious obstruction that way, so why not avoid the way that is so clearly a trap? Perhaps the cop that made the call was on the Joker’s side, or there were other minions waiting to force the convoy that way, but it's not made clear. Either way, it’s kind of odd. The bigger hole that doesn’t strike you at the time (which is generally how Nolan gets away with some of these things) comes from the party scene, after the Joker has just pitched Rachel out the window and Batman leaps out to save her. We follow them down to their rough landing, and then cut to the next scene. But wait, what happened with the Joker? Did he just leave the party after that? Wasn’t that a bit awkward? Now, to this, there is the potential explanation that the Joker initially believed that Harvey was Batman (he alludes to this later in the interrogation scene), or at least got that impression at the party. As such, when Batman jumped out the window, it seemed that the man he’d come to find (i.e. Harvey Dent) was now no longer in the building and a bit more dangerous than first anticipated, leading him to temporarily retreat and regroup. This does hold up, though it still holds a couple of awkward minutes in the reality of the film. Finally, there are some basic editing issues in the film. An example would be the scene where Alfred helps patch up Bruce near the beginning of the film, where there’s a couple of times when someone is being heard, though not actually speaking onscreen. It’s blink-and-you-miss-it stuff, but it’s still there. However, I can overlook these, because the rest of the film is so damn good.

The Dark Knight contains so much that it’s really kind of hard to do it justice when talking about it. Honestly, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what a proper in-depth look at this film can do. Its thematic concerns are timeless and woven together in such a fantastically intricate way that creates a tremendous sense of depth to the whole. It’s a tragedy of almost operatic scale, with the rise of Chaos, the fall of Hope and the wrenching pull to act without knowing the best course to take. It’s a sort of psychoanalysis on what makes society function on some of its most basic levels, with the Freudian conception of the Id, Ego and Superego represented in a manner that’s accessible and natural. It’s an excellent character drama, and a downright superb action film. I’m not kidding when I say that when I first saw this two-and-a-half hour film, I could’ve stayed for as long as it wanted to continue. Batman Begins was the film that we needed; The Dark Knight was the film we deserved.

And so, with that, Batman Week, which has managed to last nearly three weeks, comes to an end. I’ll be moving out of the Gotham City limits to look at other films from here on. Hope you enjoyed the ride.